Monmouth, Illinois

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Monmouth is the county seat of Warren County in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is the home of Monmouth College and contains Monmouth Park, Harmon Park, North Park, Warfield Park, West Park, South Park, Garwood Park, Buster White Park and the Citizens Lake & Campground.

The town was originally going to be called Kosciusko (the name was drawn out of a hat), but the founders of the town found that no one could pronounce it, possibly a good thing, considering the butchering of Rio, Cairo, and Milan.

Monmouth was once home to one of the more bizarrely named high school sports organizations, the Zippers. Originally known as The Maroons, the Zipper nickname came about in the late 1930s when the school had a fast basketball team that would "Zip" up and down the court. Sports writers nicknamed them "The Zippers" and the name stuck. The school went with the "Zipper" nickname until the 2004-05 school year when Monmouth consolidated with Roseville and the new Monmouth-Roseville High School adopted the nickname "The Titans".

Monmouth was the home for Western Stoneware, known for its "Maple Leaf" imprint and for producing "Sleepy Eye" collectible ceramics, which are recognizable by the blue-on-white bas-relief Indian profile. Western Stoneware closed in June 2006. Three former employees of Western Stoneware will operate the facility under the name WS, Inc and have leased the building and logo from the city of Monmouth.

Settlers from Monmouth, Illinois went west to found Monmouth, Oregon.

Wyatt Earp was born in Monmouth. Mass murderer Richard Speck lived in Monmouth briefly as a child, and again in the Spring of 1966. Ronald Reagan lived in Monmouth for awhile as a child when his dad worked as a shoe salesman at Calwells. World famous magician Nicoli the Great lived in Monmouth.

The city is also known regionally as the Maple City.

1 Geography
2 Demographics
3 Media
4 External links

[edit] Geography

Monmouth is located at 40°54′42″N, 90°38′40″W (40.911531, -90.644579)^GR1.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 10.5 km² (4.1 mi²). 10.4 km² (4.0 mi²) of it is land and 0.1 km² (0.04 mi²) of it (0.49%) is water.

[edit] Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 9,841 people, 3,688 households, and 2,323 families residing in the city. The population density was 942.8/km² (2,442.3/mi²). There were 3,986 housing units at an average density of 381.9/km² (989.2/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 92.72% White, 2.80% African American, 0.23% Native American, 0.47% Asian, 0.19% Pacific Islander, 1.91% from other races, and 1.67% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.35% of the population.

There were 3,688 households out of which 29.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 47.7% were married couples living together, 11.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.0% were non-families. 32.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.37 and the average family size was 2.99.

In the city the population was spread out with 23.0% under the age of 18, 17.1% from 18 to 24, 24.1% from 25 to 44, 20.3% from 45 to 64, and 15.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 88.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.3 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $33,641, and the median income for a family was $41,004. Males had a median income of $30,006 versus $20,144 for females. The per capita income for the city was $15,839. About 8.0% of families and 11.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 14.5% of those under age 18 and 6.1% of those age 65 or over.